Friday, March 19, 2010

Organic food is especially important for children because children face unique hazards from pesticide exposure. Pound for pound, children eat more food, drink more water and juices, and breathe more air than adults, and thus they take in more pesticides relative to their body weight. Their developing organ systems make children more sensitive than adults to exposure to toxic chemicals and less able to detoxify the chemicals.

One of the main concerns for parents is the "body burden" of pesticide residues in children's bodies from eating non-organic food. Studies show that children who eat a diet of organic food show levels of pesticides in their bodies that is six times lower than children who eat a diet of food produced with chemical-intensive methods.

Moreover, a new study from researchers at Emory University finds that switching children to an organic diet provides a "dramatic and immediate protective effect" against exposures to two organophosphate pesticides that are commonly used in U.S. agricultural production—malathion and chlorpyrifos. The results were published in the September 2005 issue of the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

"Immediately after substituting organic food items for the children's normal diets, the concentration of the organophosphorus pesticides found in their bodies decreased substantially to non-detectable levels until the conventional diets were re-introduced," says Dr. Lu, an assistant professor in the department of environmental and occupational health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University.

Keep your kids chemical free! Next time you are reaching for something at your local grocer, choose organic.